07/13/2009

The Brothers of Maxwell - a Canadian music duo - take their customer gripe with United Airlines beyond dissatisfaction into vestiges of folk music. At least to me. Video becomes folk commentary.

United Breaks Guitars reminds me of Charlie on the MTA.

Words are powerful.
Even more when they're put to music. Even more when video is added. Even more powerful with the the ease of internet pass along. A customer service gripe becomes a "cause." Think about it ..

02/19/2008

Diva Marketing Talks
is a live, internet radio show. 30-minutes. 2-guests. 1-topic about
social media marketing. Why? To help you understand how to participate
in the "new" conversation without getting blown-up. Miss today's show?
You can pick it up as a podcast.

Today's Diva Marketing Talks is a first .. with YouTube/video rock star comedians Kevin Nalts and Ben Relles. They'll give us their take if sites like YouTube can go beyond “cool” to being a credible marketing strategy. And by the way, how do you get a video viewed by thousands or even millions?

Kevin Nalts is a career marketer (formerly with Johnson & Johnson), and now is a Consumer Product Director at a Fortune 100 company. By night he’s “Nalts,” one of YouTube’s most prolific video creators, and a top-10 “most subscribed” YouTube comedian. He and his online videos have won numerous awards, and have appeared on CNN, ABC, BBC, Fox and CBS News.

He has created more than 600 videos that have been viewed on online-video sites more than 25 million times, and include the popular “Farting in Public,” which was featured by YouTube has been viewed more than 4 million times. Note: as of this am 4,496,359 views!

He has developed sponsored videos for such brands as Mentos, Holiday Inn, GPSManiac, Cox Communications, DoMyStuff and Crowne Plaza (see “hire Nalts“). Nalts recently accepted the International Radio and Television Society “Foundation Award” on behalf of YouTube’s Community, and is a YouTube Partner.

Kevin also speaks at industry events to help video creators learn how to monetize their work, and marketers and advertisers effectively leverage online video. In addition to creating videos, he covers the industry in this Will Video For Food blog, as a writer for now-dorman TheDailyReel and assistant editor for Politics & YouTube In Review.

Ben Relles is the founder and creative force behind BarelyPolitical.com. The site launched with the video "I Got a
Crush on Obama", a political parody that quickly went viral and has now
been seen over 100 million times, including national television
coverage in countries such as the United States, Japan, Germany, Russia
and Australia.

His has established himself as a leader in digital entertainment, creating original content that gets blogged about, talked about and viewed around the world.

Relles, an entrepreneur by nature, began his career as the founder and president of MarketVision Inc, which grew under his leadership into a $3 million company. Relles holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business where he graduated with a degree in Marketing Strategy and received the Ben Franklin Award for his contribution to the Philadelphia Community. Following Wharton, he joined the OmnicomGroup, where brands such as Nissan, Pepsi, Snickers, E*Trade and Siemens benefited from his innovative strategic thinking.

Relles has lectured on college campuses and been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and ABC for his perspective on what's next in digital entertainment and new media. Always a fan of comedy, he wrote a weekly humor column at the University of Wisconsin and can be found on rare occasion performing his 10-minute stand-up set throughout New York.

1) At a minimum, listen to what videos are saying about your brand. If Buzzmetrics or Symphony are too expensive, set up a Google alert and subscribe to YouTube videos that use your brand in the tag or description (both are free).

2) Engage. Create recreational videos about a topic of interest, and explore the online-video community beyond one-hit wonders and superficial surfing of YouTube. There's a community there, and even the brands actively promoting through YouTube often miss subtle but vital nuances because they're not a part of it.

3) Post any video content and tag it well. This cost virtually nothing and will at a minimum help your brand with search engines. Google treats video very well.

Can't call in but have a question for Nalts and Ben ? Drop a
comment and I'll ask it for you. Let me know what you'd like Diva Talks
to chat about. Don't forget Diva Marketing Talks morphs into a podcast.

A La Oprah .. make sure you listen to the "After Show". . ! Update: Steve Garfield joined us for the After Show conversation. Not to miss! Millie Garfield,Steve's 80 something mom - YouTube VideosMyMomsBlog

02/07/2008

One day I'm going to write a book. It will be about playing nicely in the social media world. It will be about how companies people within companies are reaching out in casual conversations that become meaningful. It will be how business sometimes blurs the lines of personal relationships and ROI. It will be about how playing nicely can create win-win-win situations.

There is a company with a funny name, ooVoo, that has found a way to do just that. They have asked bloggers to volunteer their time to demonstrate their new service. In lieu of compensation ooVoo is the making a donation to the Frozen Pea Fund which supports the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer campaign.

What makes this an extra special gesture is the Frozen Pea Fund was established for diva blogger Susan Reynolds who is fighting breast cancer. Please read her story on Boobs On Ice. The win is the bloggers get some visibility. The win is the Frozen Pea Fund is increased. The win is ooVoo gets lots of positive word of mouth buzz and great Search benefits. I think Katya, Nedra and Beth would approve.

ooVoo is a pretty neat concept. It's video chat that can accomodate up to 6 people at the same time who participate in the conversation. I don't know about you girlfriend, but I'm thinking video chat is a great excuse for a shopping trip for a cute new outfit with a visit to your hair stylist thrown in .. of course. Perhaps our friends at Lancome might want to partner with ooVoo (wink).

My ooVoo Day Schedule of Speakers and Times. Runs from Feb. 10 - 21, 2008.Sidebar: Thanks Scott Monty for the list. I think Diva Marketing is the only blog where you'll find the schedule of speakers with times.

01/07/2008

What Does Social Media Mean To You? is a continuing video series of Little Sound Bites of thought, insight and fun. Perhaps you'll be on the little Flip video next time we meet! Update: Video removed by request of Dave.

Dave Williams, Chief Strategist/Co-founder 360i not only shared his thoughts about social media but provided insights into how Opera , the #1 night club and events venue in Atlanta, is leveraging social networking communities to reach the youth market. Well worth a listen.

Sound Bite - Social Media Is ..

It reminds me of the web back in 1997 .. the valuations, the interest in the space, investors that express a lot of interest in the space. It's still the wild west. I don't think anyone really knows what's next.

Facebook is the next generation of where the new consumer, the younger generation is. Also I see it as a rapidly developing market for the older generation.

(Facebook)Opportunities are very compelling from a marketing perspective: event postings, developing priority applications to distribute content and information.

Most of My Space pages are similar to website pages in 1998. Like having a flaming logo on a page.

12/07/2007

In another online world, I am the moderator of the American Marketing Association's member only Internet Marketing SIG. Recently a community member asked for ideas on how to launch a social networking community for physicians.

I've been hearing buzz about - let's called them the Gotham Cities of communities .. Girl friend, I don't think I need to name names but drop a few initials MS .. FB .. YT .. some people have been saying there is no need for any more. However, in this highly fragmented world I still believe if you can create a 'long tail/niched' safe environment where people feel comfortable, the community is relevant, the members are listened to and brought into the development you have a good chance of giving people value and succeeding.

The AMA person should look at this from two view points: the unique challenges of engaging docs and the basics of building community. Here was my response. How do you think community should be build and is there still room in this virtual world for new niche players?

1. Begin with a very clear goal, that goes beyond the number of eye balls, that integrates metrics. As with any marketing strategy (and I assume that this is part of a larger initiative) social media can and should be held accountable. However, the measurements may be (and often are) different. For example instead of the number of unique visitors you might look at length of visit, number of comments, integration of relationships, etc.

2. As in any product/service you can't be all things to all people so who within the doc community are you targeting e.g., new docs, specialists, docs who have an interest in changing the healthcare system, docs who are politically active, etc? Do your conversation categories match their needs and expectations?

3. Once you have the strategic direction developed look at the "pay back" to the community. Especially with docs where time is a very precious commodity what do they get for participating in your community? Again, taking the mystic out of the equation and approaching it from a product/service marketing point of view .. what are the benefits? Another example is Sermo, a closed community for *only* licensed physicians. The benefit is the members are in a 'safe world' .. well quasi safe since Sermo has allowed paid sponsors to listen in to the conversations .. and can share their opinions, exchange ideas without patients or the larger world listening in.

Sidebar: An (email) interview with the founder of Sermo, Dr. Daniel Palestrant is in the works. One of the questions I asked Dr. Palestrant - Let’s start with the end game and then fill in some of the details. It appears as though the long-range vision for Sermo is not simply to create a virtual chat room for U.S. docs, but through that community to become the voice of U.S. physicians that in turn, impacts the healthcare system. I had the sense the community wanted to go further too. Please tell Diva readers some of the blueprint that will turn that dream into a reality. Should be an interesting discussion.

4. Perhaps this should be #1 .. always remember that your world is part of consumer generated media and people will talk about what they like and what they don't like in other communities and on blogs and within your own community. Those conversations may not stay in the virtual world but may get picked up by main stream media and you may find yourself on the front page of the WSJ or NYT. So understanding the culture is critical.

Honesty, transparency and authenticity are not nice to haves but *must haves* if you enter this space.

5. Develop guidelines that give the community room to breath but at the same time define expectations. The right guidelines will also help build trust .. in the community and among its members. If people feel "safe" and appreciated they are more likely to engage. (see #7)

6. Identify authentic champions who can help nurture the community and want to take an active role in its creation.

7. (You) take an active role also in nurturing your community members. Ask for their opinions, listen to the conversations and if appropriate participate.

8. In building a physician community personal invitations are a must for the initial launch. Word of mouth will build if the community is found to be of value. Consider identifying people who are active within social media worlds e.g., blogs, Facebook, etc.

9. Explore creating a Facebook group. While this may seem counter intuitive it may provide additional awareness.

10. Consider an email strategy that promotes some of the more popular/interesting conversations.

11. What can you do to give back to the larger community? For example is there a way to support a not for profit? Working towards a common cause or goal may encourage strangers to become friends.

12. This deserves repeating .. listen and learn from your community. Make it easy for them to talk to you. Talk to them off community.

10/19/2007

Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.

When you hear the words YouTube what comes to mind? A directory of fun, silly, inane, insane, controversial, political videos? Put on your marketing hat and YouTube morphs into an interesting distribution channel to extend awareness of your brand. From a marketing perspective YouTube is quite cool and offers multiple Free benefits:

Serves your video

Extends reach through easy to use links and codes that even technology challenged me can insert

Provides statistics on page views

Provides statistics and links on websites that link to your video

Comments turn YouTube into social networking

Voting and favorites provide the "power of crowd" recommendations

Creating a channel allows you to provide information about your organization or the brand. It also creates a Go To Space where you can store all of your videos.

As an experiment in March (Everyone Needs A Best Friend post) I uploaded a cute, (Girlfriend it is too cute!)video of Max. With a few emails to some friends this wee video today has 5 links, 4746 views, 7 comments to a question I asked, 6 favorites and 15 stars averaging a 4-star rating. I'm not sure what it means expect that people are somehow finding it and taking the time to watch.

My friends at Spunlogic, an Atlanta interactive agency, took their YouTube experience several steps further than the Maxie's best friend video. They invited YouTube celeb Kevin Nalty, or Nalts as he is know to his hundreds of thousands of fans, into their offices to film a spoof with some of their staff.

What did the staff think when they found out they were part of a practical joke and how did Spunlogic pull it off? What were the end results .. from a marketing perspective? Inquiring minds wanted to know. Stephanie Critchfield, Director of Marketing, kindly agreed to tell me the back-story of .. drum beat please .. Spunlogic's Drunk Interviews. First a few stats as of 10-19-07.

Sidebar: The video is included on Nalts channel which gives it a big lift in the view department. Although "about this video" links to Spunlogic, if YouTube allows for duplicate downloads of the same video Spunlogic should consider adding the video to their own channel.

Toby/Diva Marketing: Was the goal to film the interviews and make into a video for YouTube? Did you have any marketing objectives in filming and putting up on YouTube?

Stephanie Critchfield: We invited Nalts – an honest to goodness YouTube celebrity - to come and speak at a “lunch and learn” to a group of clients and prospects on the topic of viral video. Seeing so much success from everyday people on YouTube, it’s a medium that many brands are becoming interested in.

As a consumer marketing manager for a Fortune 100 company by day, Nalts was able to offer this group a very interesting perspective. We knew during his visit that we wanted to record a video, but we weren’t sure exactly what we were going to do. The only thing we knew with certainty was that Nalts would be editing the piece and placing it on YouTube and other online video sites.

After the lunch and learn, a group of Spunlogic employees sat with Nalts and toyed with some ideas. Nalts favors unscripted videos, not only because they are quick, but also because the reactions are more authentic.

Toby/Diva Marketing: Who are the Spunlogic employees in the video and their titles?

Toby/Diva Marketing: How did you set it up? Who did your staff think Nalts was and why was he at Spunlogic?

Stephanie Critchfield: The idea to prank our employees was very spur-of-the-moment, coming to fruition in a matter of only 2 hours. Since all of Spunlogic’s meeting rooms were booked, we set up in the only available, private space, a vacant office where Nalts carefully hid the camera on the desk underneath a stack of papers.

The plan was for Jeff to ask each Spunlogic employee to come in a meet with a prospective candidate or a prospective client, depending on the “victim.” Jeff Hilimire, the agency’s president, would tell each person that Nalts was a friend of his named Jack, who had a few too many drinks while attending the lunch and learn. No employee was aware it was a prank, they truly believed they were either interviewing a candidate, or meeting briefly with a prospective client.

Also present as a participant in each meeting was Ryan Tuttle, Spunlogic’s VP of Operations – who was in on the joke. Each person spent 5 minutes or less with Nalts /Jack, and after each person came out Jeff would set up the next person.

Toby/Diva Marketing: What was the reaction of the staff pre "know it was it hoax?"

Stephanie Critchfield: Each Spunlogic employee believed they were in a legitimate meeting. As you might expect, reactions were interesting to a drunk interviewee who falls out of his chair, snort-laughs uncontrollably, falls asleep, and nips from a bottle of booze.

Our Director of Behavioral Research, Dr. Melissa Read was able to impeccably maintain her composure. She knew he was “Nalts” and that he had just presented, so Jeff set him up to speak with her as a potential client from the “consumer marketing” piece of his life. Because Nalts didn’t act “drunk” with her, she later told me that she wasn’t certain if he was narcoleptic, but that the way he fell asleep after just being on a “high” from his presentation was consistent with narcolepsy. So, when he woke back up, she wanted to be careful not to call attention to it and embarrass him.

The woman is a consistent display of professionalism and tact. In fact, every Spunlogic employee was a model of composure during such an unusual event. I still wonder what many of them were thinking. One of my personal favorites was Scott’s reaction when Nalts fell asleep, he just stopped talking, crossed his arms and looked at Ryan with a mix of surprise and exasperation.

Toby/Diva Marketing: How did you break it to the staff that it was a prank?

Stephanie Critchfield: Nalts told each Spunlogic employee after their “meeting.” You can see the outtakes where he actually begs Dr. Read to let him use the video. He told me later that with some of them they were so surprised he wasn’t sure they knew what he was telling them. He even said the next time he pulls a prank that he might have to say “You’re on Candid Camera!” since that’s the universal language for “you’ve just been tricked.”

Toby/Diva Marketing: Sounds like it could be a new series - "Your On YouTube Now!" What was the reaction after employees knew it was a joke?

Stephanie Critchfield: In the days after the prank, when they were able to see the edited video (we allowed them to see it and give us the final ok before it went live), the reaction was very positive. They all thought it was funny, many of them asked to get the link to they could send it to their friends and family.

We don’t take ourselves to seriously around here, so each person was a very good sport. While undoubtedly out of character to be pranked in a meeting, it’s not unusual for us to play around in the office. For, example, we’ve also held a staged arm wrestling competition, which can also be seen on YouTube.

Toby/Diva Marketing: Spunlogic is def a fun place to work! What has been the reaction of putting the video on YouTube?

Stephanie Critchfield: Nalts placed the video on YouTube, Revver, MySpace and other sites. The reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. We even emailed our attendees form the lunch and learn to let them know about the prank and included a link to the video in our quarterly newsletter.

There have been well over 21,000 visits, 230+ comments, and over 425 ratings. The average rating for this video is a 4 out of 5. Some of the comments include “lol! 5 stars!!!”, “thank you for the laugh Nalts!”, “LOL i wonder what the employees said to thier boss after THAt interview! LOL”, “snort snort. funny when you hit your head.”

Be sure to read about what Kevin had to say from his visit with our agency. And the outtakes are great fun too!

Diva Marketing Talks is a live, internet radio show. 30-minutes. 2-guests. 1-topic related to social media marketing. Why? To help organizations understand social media marketing and how to join the conversation without getting blown-up. Miss tonight's show? You can pick it up as a podcast.

Diva Marketing Talks
explores how video blogs or vlogs can complement a social media
marketing strategy. We'll talk to Rick about his experience launching
his industry's first video ad. Rox will give us a few technical and strategic tips. And much, much more.

Roxanne Darling

From the beaches of beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii, Roxanne Darling's
company "Bare Feet Studios" was born of a barefoot culture
and people confuse the two frequently. Rox wears many hats; in
addition to her role as CEO Rox is also a new media video producer, a
keynote speaker, coach and web strategist

Roxanne
has over 15 years experience as an expert presenter throughout North
America, Asia, and Europe, consistently garnering 5 star ratings based
on her ability to both inspire and educate her audiences. She's given
hundreds of sessions, including keynotes, and is equally effective with
small intimate groups as well as audiences of over 1500 people. She
began speaking about podcasting in March 2005; her most recent gig is
at the BlogHer Business Conference in New York, March 2007.

She
is also the voice and co-producer of Beach Walks with Rox, a daily
video podcast aka internet tv show that won three Vloggie Awards from
both Judge's Favorites and Audience Favorites. Her show is consistently
rated in the top podcasts on Network2.tv, Podcast Alley, iTunes and
many other podcast reviews. Her philosophy is to cultivate the unique
mix of technical quality, authentic messaging, and audience interaction
for each project.

She loves new technology, is comfortable working in disruptive
marketplaces, and is a passionate translator of complex new concepts
into easy-to-understand and implement strategies. Her many years as a
coach for Johnson & Johnson and as an international trainer enable
her to connect with diverse audiences.

Rick Short

In his role of Director of Marketing Communication for Indium
Corporation, Rick Short, is responsible for creating Marcom plans and
activities that involve in multiple languages, on several continents.
Rick and his team execute over 50 trade exhibitions (award-winning exhibit
designs),hosts 375,000 blog visits, hosts 1.4 million website visits,
creates and publishes over 125 pieces of collateral and developing,
creates and places over 150 print and electronic ads (award-winning)
and conceives and promotes video ads, interviews, and demonstrations
(award-winning).

He is an acknowledged leader in social media and his media credits include interviews in US
NEWS & WORLD REPORT and UK’s The Guardian. Rick has been highlighted
in The Corporate Blogging Book, What No One Ever Tells You About
Blogging and Podcasting, Real Life Advice From 101 People Who
Successfully Leverage The Power of the Blogosphere, and Blog Rules.

He serves as an Advisory Council member for American Business Media.Rick has spoken for the American Marketing Association, Frost &
Sullivan, and at the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, as
well as at private corporate engagements. His work is monitored by some
of the world’s leading advertising and public relations agencies for
its activities and results.

Rick earned the Business Marketing Association’s prestigious Pro-Comm Award for his industry’s first online video advertisements.

Tips From The Diva Bag

Complements of Roxanne Darling

Sound matters most in video.

It may
seem counterintuitive, but people will actually put up with a shaky
camera and poor lighting and rough editing because the brain can fill
in those details. Bad sound is just nails on a chalkboard and people
will not be able to endure it.

It takes two (or more).

Video
is difficult to set up, shoot, and encode all by yourself and end up
with better than amateur presentation. Your chances of success and
sustainability increase dramatically when you have at least one person
in front and one behind the camera who can share the editing and
marketing.

Space and time both matter.

Video
files are huge compared to text files, so research a hosting solution
right up front. Your normal web hosting plan most likely will not
accommodate video blogging, at least not for long. Look into space and
bandwidth limits. If you are prolific, you will push the space limit.
If you are successful, you will push the bandwidth limit.

Aloha,Roxanne

Complements of Rick Short

BEGIN AT THE END: In other words, initiate any and all projects
with a written goal. With out a written goal, any attempt will likely
be ill-fated. This is true for the overall program as well as for each
video.

MAINTAIN RELEVANCE: Anyone can create a stir; that's just a
cheap parlor trick. By keeping the message and activity relevant to
your product/service/image, the message will have a true and meaningful
ring to it. This is true for the effect you have on your customers as
well as on your employees.

Can't call in but have a question for Rox or Rick ? Drop a
comment and I'll ask it for you. Let me know what you'd like Diva Talks to chat
about.

04/03/2007

In the summer of 2006,
Coca Cola learned a lesson that reflects it's 1970 tagline "It's The Real Thing" when EppyBird dumped a bunch of Mentos in some diet coke bottles and created a viral video that rocked the fizz off of the World's Most Valuable Brand. Sidebar: Being Reasonable has an interesting post about the history of Coke taglines.

Coke executives saw first hand how consumers can take over the perception of a carefully crafted brand message. The Real Thing was what the consumers made it .. not the message controlled by the brand. Even a brand as powerful as Atlanta-based Coca Cola. Read more: Media Post article (free registration required)

The story's gone round and round from blog-to-blog for months. What is new is the lessons learned that Tom Daly, Coca Cola Global Interactive Marketing, shared at the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association, AiMA, meeting last week. Congrats! to Wade Forst, Spunlogic, who chaired the event.

Tom's presentation focused on Coke's entree into consumer generated branding. His talk was especially interesting to me since we had volleyed emails last summer about the Diet Coke/Mentos buzz on the blogopshere. I encouraged him to join the conversation but seems Coke wasn't ready go that route.

Sidebar: An organization's culture is a major determining factor of when (let's not say "if") employees can actively participate. In the meantime, monitoring the discussion is the first step and Coke is doing that. But that's a post for another day.*

The second was a winter holiday v-card (video) strategy - Holiday Wishcast - developed in conjunction with YouTube. Coke provided people with the opportunity to create viral v-cards on YouTube. Video insert options included creating your own, downloading a YouTube video or a classic Coke commercial. Max loved this CGM video where the pooch sings carols .. he joined right in .. virtual worlds and offline worlds intersecting!

People could then choose to send their cards to friends and relatives or share them with the world at Coca Cola's Wishcast site. As with text e-cards the v-cards could be customized with a personal greeting.

Marketing included traditional, interactive and blogger relations: press campaigns by YouTube and Coca-Cola, targeted search and online marketing, animated Web ads, communication to influential bloggers and podcasters. In addition Coke's presence on the v-card provided a viral reinforcement of offering.

7 Lessons Learned Branding 2.0: The New Online Community

1. This is Complex - It’s complex and it carries risk

The campaign was designed quickly, with holiday-driven dates as immovable.

Many corporate and business functions were impacted, and mitigation strategies to distribute workload and traffic with partners made design and execution even more complex.

2. Fish Where the Fish Are- Stop trying to get them into your pool first. The prize isn’t the Prize. The Experience is the Prize

The campaign offered intuitive user experiences.

Coke saw immensely more engagement and response to calls to action in this one promotion than in all other efforts to date combined.

3. Users Love to Watch Our Ads - More than they hate advertising.

No contest was run – no finalists, no judges, no prizes.

Everybody “won” and the reward was near-immediate.

4. Play to the Team’s Sweet Spots - More team is easier than wrong team.

Partners were asked to complete tasks that were within a narrowed scope.

5. Leverage Search - Especially for things you just invented.

Targeted and refined paid search drove a great deal of traffic from outside of YouTube – billions of impressions were achieved for very reasonable cost through strategic buys and continuous refinement.

Since Coke invented and trademarked the term Wishcast, and launched the first V-card offering – neither of these were going to move the needle in any type of Search algorithm. Ancillary terms e.g., e-card, greetings, video were bought.

Yes, I realize there was no RSS feed. Yes, I realize that Coke did not actively participate in the conversation (see above*). Yes, I realize that for some the strategies Coca Cola implemented may seem like teeny steps, but for an organization that is known for doing things by the corporate book it is a giant leap and an entree into what may lead to other "social" aspects of social media marketing.

Yes, divas and divos, there is a difference between consumer generated content and social media. The difference between social media and consumer generated content is the integration of the people within the organization to exchange ideas with customers and other stakeholders.

Thanks to David Vanderpoel, North Highland. On Web Marketing, for provide the sides which included that above text. North Highland is the management consulting firm that assisted in the development and execution of the strategies.

03/08/2007

Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.

Friday Fun wraps up a week that began with a post, Social Media Networking, about how to make friends online and ends with the importance of Best Friends complements of Max, my Westie pup and his best friend Tab
the Cat.

Max and Tab romp and run and wrestle as seven year old Lindsay (Tag's person) tells their story. It's a feel good watch that I hope you enjoy and brings a smile to the start of a wonderful weekend.

Now the marketer comes out .. let's spin this with a little experiment. I don't know about you but I am really curious to understand how those little YouTube videos bubble up. Is it the number of views? The voting? I can't even pull this video up in a category search. I have not a clue how anyone found it.

Today Venus trines Saturn which is good for being objective and practical in business matters. This is a good week to take the opportunity to be alone and contemplate your business strategies. What are your goals? What is working and what isn’t working?

Enjoy your week. Take time out of your busy schedule to relax and smell the coffee.

The healthcare industry will have no choice but to engage and develop
social media if it is interested in helping people find accurate and
helpful information online.

Although there has been some dabbling into blogs, podcast and vlogs the healthcare industry, as a whole, as been reluctant to take the big leap into social media. Fard explains that part of the hesitation is a reflection a culture of tightly control of information.

In industries such as
pharmaceutical and biotech and hospitals which are all heavily regulated it is understandable that offering an open commincation forum may appear like a walk on the wild side. However, healthcare providers that have entered into this world
understand that providing an open dialogue is critical in educating
consumers of healthcare.

From Command & Control To Engage & Encourage examines two models of communication strategy. The traditional Command and Control where information is carefully crafted and messages are spoon fed to the media and other stakeholders in a more or less 'pure' form. Although this model may appear to increase the odds that what is communicated = what people actually hear, in the social media world, it no longer works. Consumers of healthcare are online searching, talking and exchanging opinions about healthcare products and services.

I agree with Fard'd position that it is fool hearty for healthcare organizations to bury their heads in the sands of denial. As in other industries, ranging from technology to packaged goods to services, no company controls their messaging or the brand experience. The internet changed the rules of the game. We're not in Dr. Kildare's world of the 1960's! The sooner healthcare providers shake off the grains of sand the sooner they can begin to use social media as a competitive advantage to build stronger relationships with their customers.

Fard offers a solution in a social media communications model he calls Engage & Encourage.

Engage & Encourage - A New Media Communication Strategy

Phase I - EngageAggressively working with influential developers of social media to encourage them to talk about healthcare issues, products/service

Conduct research to identify influential social media

Monitor the conversation www.boardtracker.com sphere.com

Phase II - Encourage

Collaborating with social media to encourage the accurate transmission of healthcare messages

Producing social media that will help enrich and expand online healthcare dialog

Stage I - Research Social Media & Develop Messages

Stage II - Engage Traditional and Social Media

Advertising on blogs, podcasts,wikis, bulletin boars

Public/social media relations - developing messages to journalists and creators of social media and encouraging them to tell your story

Posting Multimedia on a Video Sharing Website

Stage III - Social & Traditional Media Deliver Messages

Monitor mentions

Stage IV - Encourage Accuracy & Dialog

Develop your own social media e.g., blog, podcast, vlog, discussion board to help shape the dialog

Stage V - Measure Audience Response

Media coverage, advertising reach, audience response

In addition Fard encourages healthcare organizations to get into the game by producing their own blogs, podcast, videos, wikis an/or message boards.

The eBook is an easy read and offers tips on how to begin the development of a social media communication strategy. Although written for the healthcare industry the concepts are applicable to any industry. The end quote brings it home.

Remember, we may live in a new world, but the old rules still apply. Powerful communications has always been about getting people to pay attention and take action. The engage and encourage strategy is just another means of achieving the same objective.

Sidebar: Fard Johnson's definition of social media - The term social media refers to a group of technologies that enable people to collaborate, interact or meet via the internet.